Western Films
Decades
1980s to 2000s: The Maturity of the Western
Grossberg's Second Approach

By: Liat Fishman, Helen Cohen & Melissa Leithwood

Second Approach:
“The second approach defines genre as the underlying structure of values that the genre puts into play. The western is often about the conflict between culture and nature, embodied in the competing images of the eastern and western life… genres tell us how to read a particular text by placing it into more familiar structures of meaning.” (Grossberg 1998: 161).

Unforgiven
Family Values
Notions of Right and Wrong
Business vs. Individual
Revenge vs. Manslaughter
Partnership
Relations of Equality vs. Power

The Quick and The Dead
Revenge
Good vs. Evil

The Wild, Wild West
Partnership
Good vs. Evil